"You'll hobble for a few weeks," Heidel said. She had cleaned Coralina's wound with hot water and something she called 'mugwort salve' before wrapping it in bandages. Ivy sat at the worktable and watched while she drank her detestable tea.

"What about the play?" Coralina whined.

"You'll hobble through the play." Heidel stood at the kitchen table, grinding cloves with a stone pestle. "Fortunately, you spend most of it on top of that tower." She dumped the ground cloves into a steaming cup of cider. "Drink this for the pain."

Coralina took the cup and leaned back in her chair. "It's bearable so long as I keep my foot off the floor. But I can't walk." Her mood had soured since Maelyn had swept through to shake her head and lecture again on the benefits of boots. Ivy knew it wasn't the right time for it. Maelyn was good, but she could not read emotions the way Ivy could.

"Do you want one of my crutches?" Ivy asked. "I've got a few extras."

Coralina's eyes were both resentful and self-pitying. "Think I might need it."

"I'll get one for you!" Ivy got off the stool, glad to have something to offer. She couldn't understand why Jaedis remained in the room, arms folded, her face unusually hard. She had not tried to help Coralina, but stood by the wall looking like she had a tempest brewing inside her.

Heidel called after Ivy as she left the kitchen. "I don't want you running up and down stairs! Find a crutch, and I'll come up to get it in a few minutes. You need to rest your lungs."

"All right." Ivy knew better than to argue with Heidel. Her lungs felt fine after the tea, but it was true that stairs tended to tire her. She made her way gradually back to her room and picked out a nice crutch for Coralina: the white birch one with a mother-of-pearl handle. Coco should like that.

Something was in the air. Ivy could feel it. It was like the day before getting sick, when she didn't have symptoms, just a general feeling of unwholesomeness. Life in the castle was becoming increasingly unhealthy.

Coralina sat in the throne room when she liked, and she didn't sit there when she didn't like. The people of the kingdom never knew when to come and knocked at any hour of the day or night. Which made Arialain very bad-tempered.

Yet Uncle Jarrod had not removed Coralina from the position. He seemed amused by her, most of the time. She was who he spoke to most at mealtimes, when he wasn't chastising Maelyn or one of the other sisters. He had shown brief concern about Coralina's injury, but Ivy could see that concern was only on the outside. She wondered if the man had feelings at all.

Imagine growing up with that, Ivy said to Giles as she propped the white crutch by her chamber door. He has no love in his eyes. It must have hurt Roald very much to have such a cold man for a father.

Who's to say Roald isn't just like him? Giles said in a sullen voice. Even he seemed affected by Uncle Jarrod's presence. You know these traits can be hereditary.

I don't think he is. I think he's more like his mother. The sad thing was that Uncle Jarrod's first wife was barely memorable. At the king's side, she was less than his shadow; a nuisance to him more than anything else. Yet she had probably been a lovely person to those who knew her. It wasn't fair.

I've decided I'm going to write back to Prince Roald, Ivy said. I know he's still in Bella Reino and probably won't be back anytime soon. But I want a nice long letter from me to be waiting when he returns. And I'm not going to talk about his engagement problem this time. He knows he has to break it off. No, I'm just going to tell him whatever nice thoughts are in my head. I'll tell him about the cow, and about the painted rocks I'm making for Fenwick's Feast, and about Coralina's play. I won't tell him his father is here. I'll keep it light and cheerful and fun. Maybe that's what he needs right now.

I guess, Giles mumbled. Ivy couldn't understand his mood today. If she was trying to make the best of things, why couldn't he?

She spent an hour filling the letter with every sort of pleasant story. She hoped it would cheer Roald when he got back to Grunwold. His situation was dangerous. She had heard it said that one small kindness could give a person the will to stay alive for another day. She wanted to buy all the days she could.

Her door swung open, bringing Heidel into the room. "Crumpets, Ivy, it's boiling in here!"

"It doesn't bother me." Ivy was so accustomed to feeling cold most of the time, she always welcomed the summer heat. The hotter the better.

"Well, I'm going to crank a window. You'll suffocate with no air flow. Am I disrupting your work?"

"No." Ivy had discreetly tucked the letter in her writing desk when Heidel barged in. She was accustomed to these barge-ins whenever Heidel decided she needed more air, or fresh water in her pitcher, or a plate of fruit she hadn't asked for, or just a check-in. The interruptions sometimes impeded her concentration, but Ivy tried not to mind. It all came from loving concern.

"The crutch is there." Ivy pointed to the wall beside the door. Heidel cranked open two windows and then walked out, taking it with her. She left the door open, as she always did.

Ivy pulled out the letter again and wrote a few more sentences. She dipped her quill in the ink and wrote some more, a slight feeling of worry nipping at her. She hoped Roald was faring well.

She blinked her eyes once. And she saw him.

She froze, quill poised over the parchment. She had seen him. Sitting on some kind of terrace with a stone railing. He rested one elbow on the railing and looked outward, so that she viewed his profile, so like Uncle Jarrod's and yet so different. He wore a tunic of pale green with a V-shaped neckline and a jeweled ring on his first finger. His blue eyes looked pensive and wistful. He stared out over a stretch of sand, beyond which Ivy had seen water-so much water. Was that the ocean? Ivy had never seen the ocean. The sky was fiercely aquamarine, and the sand glowed white and hot. She had never seen anything more beautiful.

From Roald's face, she'd known two things at once. One: a deep sadness still consumed him. And two: he was thinking of her. Of Ivy.

She stood up from her chair, sighing deeply. He was thinking of her. Right now. In far away Bella Reino. And she had no way of telling him she was thinking of him, too.

She moved to her easel and spent several minutes stretching a new linen canvas over a frame and gently hammering it in place. The colors shone so brightly in her head: the green of Roald's tunic, the blue of the sky, the blackness of his hair, the shocking whiteness of the sand. She needed to get it painted before it faded from her mind.

You're just imagining him. You've heard what Bella Reino looks like, Giles said, crawling into his usual window niche.

We both know that's not true. Ivy uncovered her jars of paints, hoping none had dried out in the heat. She kept a rustic table by the easel to hold supplies, cut from unpolished wood and spattered with dried paint. She knew that table bothered Briette every time she came into this room. But it was better than staining fancy furniture.

Why do you have to paint him? He's probably not thinking about you at all, Giles said.

Ivy looked at him, scrunched up in the window niche. Are you... jealous, Giles?

Giles scowled. Of course not.

Ivy used a stub of charcoal to create a rough outline of her painting. She had to get Roald's profile right. Are you just mad that I've never painted you before?

Well, I'm supposed to be your best friend.

Ivy smiled. You are. But if I painted you, everyone would think it was Prince Gavin. And that would lead to awkward questions.

You think this won't lead to awkward questions?

Ivy shrugged. He's my cousin.

Not a blood cousin. He's not related to you.

Ivy stopped sketching to glare at Giles. I think you know very well that blood is not something we worry about in this family.

Maybe you should, Giles snapped, and Ivy waved him away, forcing him to disappear. She didn't understand the small changes she was seeing. He was supposed to make her happy.

She spent a long while working on Roald's face, especially his eyes. She wanted to capture the wistful expression she saw. She sketched in the other details, such as the foamy edge of the water, and that strange tree growing out of the sand. She was almost ready to start painting.

Little gusts of warm breeze touched the back of her neck, under the ribbon that held up her hair. She was settling into her creative cloud, a sort of dreamlike state where the work poured out of her, and contentment flowed through her body. This was what healed her. More than anything else.

"Is that my son?" said a deep voice from behind her.

Ivy dropped out of her cloud. She turned around on the stool. Uncle Jarrod stood in the open doorway of her chamber, staring at her drawing.